Nothing's Ever What it Seems
by Everite
Summary: Back in 1995, the Winchesters went to Japan to investigate a man who seemed cursed to run into murders wherever he went. While John speaks to the detective in question, the brothers meet a boy named Conan—and get caught up in a murder. The Winchesters believe a ghost is the culprit. Conan doesn't believe that for a second—but should he?
1. Business Trip

**A/N:** Wow, it's my first fanfiction story I've ever posted anywhere! I've had this idea for a while, and since it never seemed to get old, I figured it would be a good place to start for my first fanfiction! ^ ^ I hope you enjoy this. And, of course, disclaimer, I own neither Case Closed/Detective Conan nor Supernatural.

Dean

"_The Winchester family doesn't take vacations. We take business trips."_

Dean tried to take some comfort from the calm of the rest of his family. John had already pulled out one of the newspapers from the bag under his seat and started reading. Double-checking all the research he'd already done for the case, more than likely. Sam was staring out the window, completely oblivious to the rest of his family. He had his headphones on.

_Probably listening to one of those "Learn Japanese Now!" CDs again. He's been playing them nonstop since we found out about this case, that little geek._

The plane rumbled and started down the runway. Dean grasped at his armrests.

_Come on, stop! See how calm everyone else is? I'll never hear the end of it if Sam catches me freaking out. And Dad would…_ Dean tried to steady his breathing. _Calm. Be calm, just like Dad. Calm…._

When the plane lifted off, Dean felt it. Every bump and bit of turbulence felt like the beginnings of a plane crash.

…_.for eleven hours. Yeah, I guess I'm kidding myself._

Dean rummaged under his seat for his duffel bag. He had to lean down pretty far, and it left him in a rather unstable position. It didn't help to steady his nerves. _Just a minute, maybe two, then it'll be fine. I'll wake up and be there. No big deal, it's just a plane. Planes crash, yeah, but hunting monsters is way more dangerous than this, right?_

Finally, Dean's hands managed to grasp the water bottle and small plastic bag he'd snuck into his luggage. He pulled out the bottle, but hesitated before taking the pills into his hand. He glanced around. Neither his brother nor his father was paying Dean any mind. Still, he swallowed down the sleeping pills in one quick flourish.

_Enough to knock me out for the whole flight. Being unconscious is the best way to deal with any flying._

It was too bad Dean's paranoia prevented him from doing something more productive on the trip over, though. Their father had told them all the details of the case before they'd left, so he could've used the time to think up some ideas for what exactly they were facing. That's what his dad would have wanted, Dean knew, but he couldn't really help himself here. More likely, he would have spent the time too panicked to concentrate much.

"_We're going all the way to Japan?" Dean had thought it was strange; that was way outside of their usual turf. It must be something big, Dean had reasoned._

"_There's a man there I've been keeping tabs on for a while. A detective. He's run into more murders than anyone but us."_

Dean closed his eyes and leaned back in the seat. _Maybe a curse?_ He thought. _From an object, or a witch? Or maybe some kind of ghost's following him around…._

"_But if he's a detective, isn't it his job to look at murders?" Sam had said. Dean had shot him an annoyed glare, but their father had just shaken his head._

"_No, it's more than that…every vacation, trips to the store, parties, chance meetings….everything always ends in death. The detective always seems to solve the murders, but it's still just too much to be normal. In the past year alone, there have been dozens of murders around this man, most of them by pure chance. This could be something big…I've never heard of something on quite this scale before."_

At that point, John had seemed to be talking to himself more than his sons, so Dean had left him alone. He read through all of the case descriptions of the man in question, a certain Kogoro Mouri. The murder cases made for interesting reading, at least. They read more like mystery stories than dry newspaper articles. Sam had enjoyed them more than the family's usual fare, at least. After all, they almost always had a nice, happy ending with the criminal captured. A far cry from their line of work.

But Dean couldn't see any connection between the piles of cases he'd read through. Whenever someone mentioned the freakish number of murders he'd seen, Mouri played it off as a strange coincidence.

_That's why we've got to go over there…see for ourselves. It definitely sounds like our kind of deal…Will Dad let us help more this time? I'm ready, I am, I can do it. He's taught me everything already, I just…I just…_

"Dean! Dean, look, you can see Japan now!"

"Uhn? Are we landing?" _Please?_

Sam shook his head. He tugged at Dean's sleeve and pointed out the window. "No, not yet, but look!"

Dean leaned over Sam to glance out the window. _Oh god, why'd you wake me up for this?_ Dean felt his heart jump to his throat just from the height. They were still far above the safety of the land. It was true, though, that he could see their destination: the city of Tokyo. It was night now, so the lights of the city were shining up like stars. It would have been an amazing sight…if Dean could concentrate over his fear.

Sammy, though, was alternating between staring out the window in wonder and grinning at Dean. When he smiled like that, Dean couldn't help but smile back. It felt a little forced to him, but Sam didn't seem to notice. He was too entranced with the view below him.

"Can you believe it, Dean? I never thought we'd get to take a trip to another country…it's great, isn't it? Like a vacation?"

Dean wrapped his arm around Sam's shoulder, probably a little too tightly. "Yeah, Sammy. I'm sure it will be."

_A vacation. Right, a working vacation._


	2. Don't Inflate His Ego

**A/N:** I'd like to thank everyone so much for the great response I've been getting! Thank you to everyone who followed my story and to MihAela-Selene and Fluehatraya for their awesome reviews. You really made my day!

Conan

"_The last thing Kogoro needs is some American reporter flying all the way out here to inflate his giant ego."_

"Aren't you excited, Conan-kun? Imagine, an American newspaper taking an interest in my Dad!"

_Yeah, it's hard to believe all right._

Conan forced himself to put on a smile as he glanced up at Ran. "Yeah! It'll be great!"

She smiled back down at him. She started to pick up the pace, and gripped Conan's hand tighter as they made their way through the crowded sidewalk. "I just worry that it might all go to his head…"

"Aw, Ran-neechan, when has that ever happened?"

_Except every time he "solves" a case._

"Hmm, well…I suppose." Ran still looked worried, Conan thought. Not that he could blame her. Conan put on his bright, happy-little-kid face.

"But you said there'd be kids coming too, right? Maybe they're my age!" _Though if they really were my age, they'd hardly want to hang out with a grade schooler._

"Yes, the reporter said he wanted to use this as a vacation for his kids, so they're coming along…but I think they might be a bit older than you."

"That's okay! We can still be friends! After all, we brought these great gifts for them!" Conan held up the bag he'd been toting around in his opposite hand.

"It really was nice of Dr. Agasa to make these for us, when he heard that reporter was coming. Now we won't have to hire a translator!"

_Hard to believe they wouldn't bring one themselves, if they're a big enough newspaper to send their journalists all the way over here. But they didn't say anything about a fourth person…Unless he can speak Japanese? Maybe…_

"Oh!"

Conan glanced up at Ran, but she wasn't looking at him. She was staring up at the stairs of their detective agency, where they'd just arrived. Three people were standing at the front door. There was a foreign man, dressed in an old beige suit, who Conan assumed was the American reporter. That made the two kids beside him his sons. The younger one, who must have been eleven or twelve, was dressed in plain jeans and a hoodie. The older one was watching them…or, more accurately, Ran. He shot her a grin, and Conan frowned.

_Watch it, buddy._

"Oh, you must be the reporter!" Ran said, stepping closer towards them. From the confused stares she got, Conan thought that they probably didn't speak much Japanese. "Oh, um…" Ran stammered. She opened her mouth, and said in slow, careful English, "It's nice to meet you. My name is Ran Mouri."

The youngest boy stepped down onto the sidewalk. With a determined look on his face, he spoke. "Nice…to meet you." His Japanese was slow and broken, and he spoke like the words were something he'd memorized carefully. "I am Sam. He is my…brother, Dean. He is my father, John…Morgan."

_This would go much faster if I could just speak English with them. But no normal seven year old is fluently multilingual, so…_

"Nice to meet you! I'm Conan." He placed a hand on his chest as he said his name. Then, he took one of the devices out of his bag and handed it to the boy, Sam. He looked unsure, so Conan added, in English, "Gift." He mimed putting it in his ear and turned on the device's switch.

Sam placed the device in his ear, frowning.

"See, there! Better now, right mister?" Conan switched back to Japanese. Sam's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "It'll translate any Japanese you hear into English for you…and anything you say into the mic will be translated into Japanese for us! My friend is an inventor, see…"

"That's amazing!" he said. He took the other headsets that Conan offered him and offered an explanation to the rest of the family. Dean seemed mildly impressed, though Mr. Morgan's face was unreadable. He thanked them, at least.

"Well, now, I don't want to leave you all standing out here any more. My dad—that's Mr. Mouri—should be inside. Let's go in!" Ran said. She stepped past them and opened the door. Conan trailed along just after her.

Predictably, Detective Mouri was staring, completely oblivious, at the TV when they walked in.

"Dad!" Ran shouted, "What are you doing?" She stomped over to his desk and shut the television off.

"Hey, hey, what're you doing, Ran? It was just getting to the good part, and you had to—"

"You have guests, or did you forget? The American newspaper? That's today!"

"Huh?" Kogoro glanced up and noticed, apparently for the first time, the three people still hovering by the door. Mr. Morgan seemed less than amused. Kogoro jumped up and rushed towards them, straightening his suit along the way. "The famous Kogoro Mouri, at your service!"

_And here we go._

Dean asked to use the bathroom, and Ran pointed him down the hall. Then, she said that she would make coffee for everyone and headed into the kitchen. Sam offered to come and help her, and followed her in. _That's fine; he's young. As long as it's not that other guy with Ran, it's all right. _

Mr. Morgan and Kogoro settled into their seats to start the interview. For the moment, it was all the usual questions: what's your background, how'd you get into the detective business, how do you solve your cases, all that nonsense. Conan wandered around the room, only half-listening. He happened to catch a glimpse down the way Dean had gone.

"That's not the bathroom."

Dean jumped and quickly spun away from the doorway he'd glanced in. "Yeah, whoops. Sorry. Which one is it?"

Conan pointed. "The open door? The room with the toilet in it?"

His eyes narrowed, but the smile on his face didn't falter. "Right. Guess I'm a little jet-lagged still. Thanks, kid."

Conan watched him until he closed the door, then returned to the main part of the room.

"Don't you think it's strange? How many murders you just _happen_ to run into?" Mr. Morgan was saying.

"Well, I never really thought about it that much…it's just a good thing I _was _there all those times, or those murderers would have got off scot-free!"

"Right. Maybe you're cursed. Ever bring home anything that looked old, or strange? Maybe in a locked box?"

Kogoro laughed. Conan had to repress the urge to join him. Sure, some people had joked that Detective Mouri might be cursed, but they were always just that—_jokes_. No one had ever had that severe expression that Mr. Morgan had on now.

"Yeah, it's the detective's curse," he said, still grinning. "Come on, Mr. Morgan, you can't be serious." 

The corners of Mr. Morgan's mouth twitched up. "Of course not. Now, all these murders that you keep running into…when did they all start?"

"Well, I _am_ a detective, these things just come—"

"But you've only become famous more recently. What made that happen?"

_That would be me._

"I guess it was around the time that company president's daughter disappeared, and I was hired to find her…it was my first case in a while."

"Oh, I remember that, Dad!" Ran stepped back into the room, a tray of steaming coffee in her hands. Sam, it seemed, was still hanging back in the kitchen. It was another second before he joined them. Dean seemed to materialize into the room at the same time. "That was around the time Conan-kun first came here, remember?"

"Conan?" Mr. Morgan said. His eyes fell on the boy in question. "This kid?"

Suddenly, every eye in the room was on Conan. "Y-yeah, that's me," he said.

"I assumed he was your son, Mr. Mouri." Mr. Morgan didn't move his attention from Conan as he spoke.

"No, he's just some freeloader, a relative of my daughter's friend. He started living here right around the time of that case I was talking about…"

"Really?"

"Yeah, yeah, but you don't want to hear about that! Let me tell you about that kidnapping…"

Mr. Morgan turned back to face Kogoro. "Actually, Mr. Mouri, I'd like to ask you a favor. You see, my sons are probably getting bored with my work by now, and I'm sure they'd love to see the city. Maybe someone could…show them around, while we adults talk?"

"I'll take them, Dad," Ran volunteered. "I know a bunch of places that I'd like to show them!" She smiled at the two brothers.

"Make sure you take that brat, too. I don't want him interrupting my interview."

Conan snorted.

"Thank you very much, sir," Mr. Morgan said. "But before you go, Dean…" He motioned for his older son to come closer. When he did, he moved the translating microphone away from his mouth. "You know what to do, Dean?"

_Huh?_ His words only came out in English, so Ran and Kogoro wouldn't have understood him. He obviously didn't want anyone else to hear…but Conan understood just fine.

Dean nodded, his face serious. But when he turned back to the rest of the group, he was grinning. "All right, Ms. Tour Guide, let's go!" Conan followed close behind the brothers as they stepped out of the room. He kept a careful eye on the both of them as they walked.


	3. One Normal Vacation

**A/N:** Here we are with chapter three! I start school again tomorrow, and I wanted to get this online before the work starts to attack all my free time again xD Thank you so much to everyone who followed, and to MihAela-Selene and Fluehatraya for their reviews. You guys are all awesome!

Sam

"_Maybe for Dad, and even for Dean, this trip was just business. But not me. I want to see everything while I have the chance. I just want one normal vacation."_

Sam knew what he was supposed to be doing, but he chose to ignore his "responsibility," along with the annoyed looks that Dean kept shooting him. He'd checked both Ran and Conan out on the EMF meter, and hadn't gotten a reaction from either of them. So, surely, it was okay to talk with them about all the sights they were seeing around the city, like they were normal tourists.

Dean had, of course, latched immediately onto the girl, Ran. She either didn't notice his attempts at flirting or didn't care. Sam thought he'd be stuck having conversations about children's' cartoons with the little kid, but Conan had surprised him with an intelligence far beyond his seven years. He seemed to have some interesting anecdote for every landmark they passed.

"We should stop by Touto Tower later…it's got a great view, and it's not too far away," Conan suggested.

"Really? Could we? That would be great! I've been looking forward to seeing everything every since we heard about this trip…"

Meanwhile, Sam listened to the entirely different conversation that Dean was having with Ran.

"So, it sounds like you and your family get around a lot. You guys seem to know a lot of places."

"Yeah, I suppose so. I mean, I grew up around here, so I know the area pretty well."

"Must be pretty scary, though. Running into all those murders everywhere…"

Ran smiled wanly. "It gets pretty…dark, I guess. It's sad to say, but we're almost used to it by now. I still scream every time I have to see another corpse, though."

Dean continued, "Seems like everywhere you go with your dad, there's another murder, huh?"

"Not just my Dad. Even when it's just me and Conan-kun, we can't seem to get away from it."

Sam turned his attention back to the boy. _Him again. Maybe it's not Mr. Mouri…_ Sam stopped himself. _No. This is a vacation. This isn't my job, I won't let it be my job._

"What about you, kid? All those dead people ever freak you out?" Dean said to Conan.

The boy shook his head.

"Really? Seems like the kind of thing that might give you nightmares."

_I don't really think that we have a right to talk on that one, Dean._

"Huh? Oh, no, what I mean is…I'm really brave! And besides, I know that Mr. Mouri's always gonna catch the criminal, so I don't have to worry." He laughed, but it sounded forced even to Sam. Dean caught his brother's eye. He raised an eyebrow and mouthed, "Possession?"

Sam shrugged, and turned away from his brother's gaze. Let _him_ deal with it; he was Daddy's little soldier, not Sam.

Dean pushed away his microphone and leaned over towards Sam. "Personally, I'd be worried that all those ghosts would come back to haunt me," Dean muttered. Sam only had the time to shoot his brother a frown before the subject was changed.

"Oh, hey, look at that!" Ran said, pointing down one the street they'd just passed. The road was blocked off and people swarmed around it and the entrance. The sound of laughter and the smell of cooking food drifted away from the crowd. Booths with vendors shouting about their merchandise lined both edges of the street. Ran continued, "It's a street fair! I think I remember hearing something about it…but I forgot it was today. We should go in and check it out! There's probably a lot of fun stuff."

Sam saw Dean hesitate and he piped up before his older brother could answer, "That would be great! Thank you so much!"

Dean smiled and thanked her, too, but Sam was surprised that Conan had remained silent. Didn't kids love things like this? He knew he would've loved to do something like this if he could, at his age. Hell, hewas twelve and he was _still_ excited.

Apparently Ran noticed this, too, because she asked him, "Conan-kun? You want to go see it too, right?"

Conan started, like he'd been thinking about something. He smiled up at Ran, though, and said, "I'd love it! I can't wait!"

The press of the crowd tapered off once they made their way past the entrance. Sam was entranced with the street fair as soon as he stepped into it.

There were vendors everywhere, calling out the names of foods that Sam hadn't ever seen before, except in Japanese travel guides. There were even more that Sam had never heard of; even Dean seemed taken in by a few of the foods they were offering. Simple games, like those they had at carnivals, also dotted the street, though they were completely different than their American counterparts. A few lotteries tried to pull in every passer-by, daring them to test their luck. Eventually, Ran led them to one of the food stalls and ordered something for all of them. Dean looked suspicious for a moment, but seemed happy with the treats she'd brought back: bananas, but dipped in chocolate and stuck on a stick.

They moved out of the flow of traffic to eat their food, off to the front of a jewelry store that seemed to be closed for the fair. Sam took a moment to watch Dean take a hesitant bite of his banana and, apparently happy with it, nearly devour the thing in one bite. Ran laughed at that, and Sam and Conan both cracked a smile. Once he'd managed to swallow the bite, Dean stuck his tongue out at his brother.

Sam leaned back against the store window and was about to take a bite of his food when a sudden buzzing from his jacket pocket made him jump. Dean raised an eyebrow at him, but Sam shook his head. The vibration hadn't stopped, though.

_What is that? It can't be—_

Sam frowned. _Did I turn my EMF off before, after I checked them? I can't remember doing it. I left it on vibrate, too, so it wouldn't make any noise even if they were…_

Sam swallowed. If the EMF meter was going off, then…

_No. It's nothing. The stupid thing is probably broken; I get all the hand-me-downs anyway._ He reached into his pocket and switched off the device. The buzzing stopped. _It's nothing, I'm sure._


	4. Who're the Cursed Ones, Here?

**A/N: **Finally, we start to get more towards the main plot! Thank you so much for everyone who's followed and favorited this story already—I'm so happy you're enjoying it so far! And thanks also to Fluehatraya for your review—the advice was really helpful! I hope you all enjoy! ^ ^

Dean

"_Murders follow these people around, and supernatural stuff follows us around. So who're the real cursed ones here?"_

Yeah, all right, so going into the haunted house _had_ been Dean's idea. He didn't have any doubts about his motives, either. Bringing a girl into a haunted house was a classic, right? Get the girl scared so maybe she'd grab onto you, or something. And as long as the threats weren't real, what was the harm? Dean would've been sufficiently satisfied with the results—it seemed like Ran was actually afraid of ghosts and anything like them—except for the kid. Conan wouldn't let Dean get anywhere near Ran, much to Dean's annoyance. He kept his little hand firmly wrapped around hers for the entire time.

_Put your little crush somewhere else, kid!_

Soon enough, though, they'd arrived at the exit. A man stood there, dressed in some absurd vampire costume, and thanked them for visiting. The sunlight streaming down onto the street revealed just how harried Ran looked. Her hair was disheveled, her face was pale, and her forehead was covered in a thin sheen of sweat.

"Why am I the only one freaking out? That was scary, with all those monsters jumping out at us everywhere…" Ran complained. She looked to Sam for reassurance. Apparently, Dean's grin made him a poor choice for sympathy. "Doesn't this stuff scare you at all?"

_Yeah right._ Either Sam or Dean were more likely to knife someone who jumped out at them than scream. But Sam said nothing, just smiled and shrugged.

"You really are brave, huh, Conan?" Sam said to the boy. Dean noticed that he didn't seem distressed at all. He looked more bored than frightened. _Some kid._

"That kind of stuff doesn't scare me—none of it's real!"

Dean almost scoffed, but he settled for a sharing a knowing glance with Sam.

"Easy enough to say when we're out in broad daylight," Ran said. Her voice seemed much calmer now as the haunted house was left far behind them.

As soon as they had made their way further down the street, Dean noticed something was wrong. The crowds had thinned somewhat, and all sounds of joyful laughter were gone. The sound had been replaced with soft whispers. "What's going on?" He asked, but then he saw something up ahead: a mob. They were all crowded around one store, a jewelry store, by the look of it. But what caught Dean's notice more than the crowd were the police cars scattered across the road.

"Aw, hell," Dean muttered. The sight of the crowd put a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He glanced over at Sam, only to see that his brother's face had gone pale.

"What happened here?" Ran wondered. She hung back from the edge of the crowd, clutching at her bag.

"I'll go see if anyone knows," Conan said. He seemed to be the least worried of all of them, though there was definitely interest in his eyes. He skipped away towards the group without waiting for anyone's answer.

"Wait!" Ran called out. "Conan-kun, you can't just run off like—"

Dean put a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry, I'll go watch him. Sam, come on." He jerked his head towards the commotion when, after a moment, Sam had shown no sign of hearing him. Finally, Sam nodded.

It looked like Conan had pushed his way to the front of the crowd by the time Dean and Sam got there. _Much easier to get through when you're that little. Make sure no one steps on you, all right?_

A few police officers held the crowd at bay in a semicircle around the store's entrance. Dean caught a glimpse of a line of police tape marking the entrance to the building. He couldn't see anything inside, though.

Dean strode up to one of the policemen. "What happened?" he asked. The man gave him an annoyed look.

"Nothing to see here," the cop replied. "Nothing for civilians, at least."

Dean scowled. He opened his mouth to argue, but before he could speak, Conan spoke from beside him, "But mister, we were just standing over here before, and there wasn't anything going on. Did something happen from now 'till then? Maybe we saw something that could help you." 

Dean gave the store another look over. Now that the kid had pointed it out, he recognized it as the place they'd stopped near to eat their food. It was a weak connection at best, but this cop wouldn't know that.

The cop hesitated. "Is that true?" he posed the question to Dean and Sam, pretty much ignoring Conan.

Sam was the one who answered, "Yeah, we were here just a half hour ago." 

"Well, fine," the policeman said, though he looked far from pleased. "I'll let the inspector decide what to do with you." He waved them through. Conan shot him a smile as he passed by, but the man didn't return it. He just pointed to the doorway, where a heavyset man in a brown coat and hat had just appeared.

"Inspector Megure!" Conan called out to the man, waving.

_Of course he'd know the guy. With how many murders this family runs into, they're probably on a first name basis._

The inspector's face scanned over the crowd, searching for the source of the voice, before his gaze finally fell on Conan. He looked less than surprised.

"Oh, Conan. Just when I thought I'd have to look into a murder case that _didn't_ involve you."

_This guy could be a good lead for our case. I'll have to get his full name and tell Dad later._

"And who're these guys? They with you?" Megure had turned his attention to Dean and Sam, who hovered a few feet behind Conan.

"Oh! Their dad came over from America to interview Mr. Mouri, and we were showing them around."

Dean stepped forward first. "I'm Dean Morgan, and this is my brother, Sam."

Megure's eyebrows shot up. "They speak Japanese?"

Conan shook his head. "No, Dr. Agasa made them a translator."

"You said there was a murder here? What happened?" Dean said, before the conversation could go any further off track. _This is pretty relaxed for a murder investigation._

"That's right," Megure said. He led them into the store. There were cops all over the scene, but none of them paid their group any mind. The corpse spread out on the carpet dominated the room. It had been an old woman, once. Her face was twisted into a mask of pain, but that wasn't the first thing Dean noticed. The jewels, necklaces, rings, and bracelets spilling out of her mouth were too strange and too obvious to overlook. Dean's bad feeling ramped up another notch.

"The store was closed for the street fair," Megure continued, "But apparently one of their regular customers didn't know about the closing, so she came up anyway. She looked into the store when the door wouldn't open, and saw…this. Ms. Kazuko Morikawa, we believe."

Once the explanation was done, Conan wandered off. He walked straight up to the corpse and was examining it right next to all the police officers. Dean laughed.

"What exactly did you three have to do with the case, again?" Megure asked, his eyes narrowing.

Dean really didn't want to get into the debriefing right now. He had a hunch that something was going on here, and he wanted to look into it more. Which he couldn't do if he was talking to Megure. They'd probably kick them out when they realized that they weren't exactly key witnesses.

Sam was the one who answered. "We happened to be around here just before," he said. Sam caught Dean's eye, and nodded his head towards the crime scene. _Go ahead,_ the look seemed to say. "It was about a half hour ago…and we didn't see anything or anyone here."

Dean slunk away while they continued the conversation. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the EMF meter he'd brought along to check up on Ran and Conan. He flipped it on in a place where no one else could really see what he was doing. Apparently that was useless, though, because the loud noise it made when he clicked it on brought everyone's attention to Dean anyway.

"Sorry," he said. "Cell phone's on." Everyone went back to their work once Dean had turned the device off.

_Well, that answers one question. _He caught Sam's eye and nodded. _Now this is definitely our kind of case._


	5. Not Lining Up

**A/N: **I'd like to offer more thanks to my new followers, and my regular reviewer Fluehatraya! ;D Your support's really inspiring me to keep writing fast ^^

Conan

"_When you arrange the clues correctly, the real truth will always show itself. So why isn't anything lining up?"_

_Potassium cyanide,_ Conan thought, once he'd looked over the corpse. The lack of blood or external wounds combined with the way the Mrs. Morikawa's body was clutching at her neck made poison seem like a likely cause of death. That, combined with the smell of almonds hanging like a mist over the corpse made Conan's mind jump right to potassium cyanide. That made sense.

What _didn't_ make sense were the pieces of jewelry shoved into the woman's throat. Were they trying to hide something with them? Maybe one of them held the poison that had killed her, but why would the victim put them in her mouth? If they had been forcibly shoved into her mouth before she died, why bother with the poison at all, then? It must have been done post-mortem, but _why?_ What did it mean?

_Maybe the suspects will reveal something._

There were four people who had been brought in by the police. There was the woman who had found the body, a regular customer named Yuko Takahashi. The jewelry store had been working on a watch that she'd gotten for her husband as a present, and she was scheduled to pick it up the next day. She claimed that she had come a day early to see how it was coming along because she was in the area. Takahashi had been with a friend of hers right up until they'd passed by the jewelry store and Takahashi had decided to go see Mrs. Morikawa. The friend confirmed her alibi.

Yosuke Morikawa was the son of the victim, the man set to inherit all of her vast fortune now. He and his wife, Akiko, had been having lunch down the street until the police had called him in. He now stood in a corner, his face blank as his wife attempted to comfort him. The people at the restaurant confirmed their location.

That left Rintaro and Kohei Morikawa, the grandsons of the victim. But _they_ had been out at the street fair together until they'd been brought in, and since they were well-known in the area as two of the jewelry store's owners, nearly every vendor was able to confirm their location.

_What's going on here? Everyone has a solid alibi! It's not supposed to be like this. _Sure, it could have been an outside job, maybe even a random act of violence, but that seemed far from likely. None of the jewelry in the store had been taken, and nothing was broken. Even if something had been taken, Conan would have doubted that this was a burglary—it seemed unlikely, especially considering the condition of the body and the cause of death.

_Dammit!I _

Conan pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, where a headache was starting to form.

What was going _on?_ None of the innumerable witnesses available had even seen someone enter the store.

Conan sighed and stood up from his cross-legged sitting position. He made another loop around the room, hoping that _this_ time he'd see some clue. But like the last four times he'd done this, there was nothing to be found.

_There's no such thing as a perfect crime,_ Conan reminded himself, but this one was stumping him so far. He didn't even have an _idea _what had happened.

Conan made his way towards the policeman who'd been charged with going over the scene for traces of potassium cyanide.

"Did you find any poison anywhere?"

The man sighed and scratched his head. If he thought the question was odd, coming from a seven-year-old, he didn't say anything. "Not a thing," he said. From the exasperation in his voice, it sounded like he was just as perplexed by this as Conan.

Conan frowned. "Nothing? Not on the stuff in her mouth, or anywhere around her? On her clothes? On the suspects?"

"Like I said, nothing." He wasn't even looking at Conan. Instead, his eyes scanned over the scene.

_Probably looking at all these pieces of jewelry that he'll have to check over._

There was a lot of it, that was for sure: expensive pieces that looked like they belonged in a museum. Each had its own little name card, but no price was listed on any of them.

"Where are all the prices?" Conan asked one of the brothers that usually ran the store. It was Rintaro, the older one.

The man's lips curled down into a grimace. "Our family is very prestigious. Most of this is our _personal_ collection, and not for sale."

"Oh." Conan paused. "Well, what's—"

"Leave me alone, boy! I have important things to take care of. You shouldn't have even been allowed in here. Who's watching you?"

_Now that he mentions it…where are the Morgans? Didn't they tell Ran they would watch me? I mean, not that I'm complaining, but…_

Conan glanced around the room, but didn't see them on his first look. Finally, he caught sight of them in a tucked-away alcove, out of sight of most of the policemen. They were leaned in close to each other, and the translators weren't in their ears.

_Looks like they don't want anyone to hear them._ He crept closer, making sure that they wouldn't be able to see him coming. _Let's see what they're up to…._

"You don't want to tell Dad?" Just as Conan thought, they were speaking in untranslated English. _That's Sam's voice._

"Not this time. I'm sixteen already; you and I can handle this one case on our own. How hard could it be? And besides, Dad's got his own stuff to keep him occupied. He wouldn't care about one little death like this."

_What are they talking about? They sound like they're planning to investigate the murder—what kind of kids do that? _Conan realized the hypocrisy of this statement, and shrugged. _Not that I'm much different, but…they sound like they know something. Something the cops don't. Maybe they can help me…_

Conan stepped into their view, startling the brothers. "What're you guys talking about? Do you know something about the lady that died?"

"None of your business, kid," Dean replied immediately.

Sam was a bit nicer, but his reply was no different. "You don't really want to get involved in all this murder stuff again, do you? You're better off not knowing."

Conan's eyes narrowed. "Listen, you've got to tell me what you know. Come on, please—"

"We can go home now, then?" The question brought Conan's attention back to the suspects still hovering in the center of the room. He spun around, current questioning forgotten, just in time to see Inspector Megure nodding.

"I don't see any reason not to. We'll get the autopsy done, find the cause of death, and continue the investigation tomorrow. Just keep your schedules open, so we can call you in for follow-up questioning."

_No! No, no, no, no! _Conan thought. _He can't let them go! If one of them's the killer, it'll give them time to plan, to get rid of evidence, everything!_

But Conan had no power to keep them there. He hadn't found a singular piece of evidence, much less the identity of the killer. He couldn't pull a quick resolution out of thin air this time.

So, for the first time in Conan's memory, he was forced to watch as a group of potential killers was set free.


	6. On Our Own

**A/N: **Hello everyone! I want to thank everyone who followed and favorite my story, again, along with everyone who's reading it—I hope you're all enjoying the story! And thank you, Fluehatraya—your reviews always make me smile and inspire me to keep writing :D So, again, thank you all, and here's the next chapter.

Sam

'_This is the most I've ever seen Dean rebel from Dad. I'm not going to stop him if he thinks we can investigate this on our own."_

So far, John Winchester hadn't caught on that his sons were taking on their own case right under his nose. He was too focused on Mr. Mouri's case, which seemed to have left him frustrated and stumped, though he'd never admit it. He only spoke to Sam and Dean long enough to hear what information they'd gotten from Ran and Conan. When the brothers told him that they hadn't found any more than he had, he'd scolded them and ignored them for the rest of the night.

_No surprise there. He's not paying enough attention to us to suspect us of anything._

Dean had managed to convince Ran and Conan not to say anything about the murder to either Kogoro or John. "If our dad finds out what happened, he won't let us out of his sight for the rest of the trip. And we'll never get another vacation like this one, so please?" Dean had told Ran, and she agreed not to mention it. Conan hadn't ever seemed in danger of telling anyone, though.

_He's suspicious of us. He heard us talking before, and he wants to find out what we're up to._ A part of Sam's mind tried to remind him that Conan was only in first grade, but it did nothing to convince him that the boy wasn't a danger to the family secret.

Dean and Sam followed their father down out of the hotel room the next afternoon. None of the family had been allowed out of the room before that. The research—which was far more difficult in a foreign language, despite the translating tools they had available—had kept John up all night, though he acted pleasant enough when they met Mr. Mouri in the lobby.

They were continuing the second part of the "interview" over lunch in the hotel's restaurant.

"Dad, can we go off into the city again?" Dean asked.

_Even in rebellion, always asking for permission._

"Fine," John said, distracted.

Mr. Mouri, on the other hand, seemed much more enthused. "Oh, great! Maybe you could take this kid off my hands, too?"

Then, Conan emerged from behind Kogoro. "I wanted to see you guys again!" he said.

"Yeah, that's what he told me. He forced himself along, as usual." Kogoro directed a glare at the young boy, but he didn't seem to mind.

Dean wasn't happy, that was obvious. "It'll be hard to do…everything we need to do with this kid around." He directed a pointed look at his father, but he didn't seem to notice.

"If you try and leave without me, I'll just follow you." Conan said it with a laugh, but Sam didn't doubt that he was serious.

"That'll be fine, Dean. Maybe you can get to know him more than you did yesterday," John said. From the look in his eyes, Sam had no doubts about what he was saying: _Get me some information this time._

"Yes, sir," Dean said.

_Of course._

As they were leaving, Sam pulled Dean aside. "How are we supposed to investigate this case with this kid investigating us?" He spoke in a whisper. Somehow, the day before, Conan had understood what they'd been talking about despite the fact that they weren't using the translators. This little kid somehow spoke fluent English. Sam added it to the list of things that were off about Conan.

"We didn't really have a choice, Sammy. You aren't really scared of a seven year old, are you? Even if he did find out about us…who's gonna believe him?"

Sam wasn't so sure, but he didn't argue.

"You're going to investigate that murder from yesterday, right?" Conan said.

There wasn't any doubt in his tone. Dean nodded.

"I can help, then! Just tell me what you guys know."

"Yeah, right," Dean scoffed.

Throughout the trip to the jewelry store, Conan badgered the brothers to tell him what else they knew about the case. Neither Sam not Dean offered him any information, though, so all Conan got for his trouble was silence and evasive answers.

Though the street was much less crowded than it had been the day before, and filled with cars instead of people, there was still a group assembled outside of the store. From the questions they shouted and the cameras they were holding up, though, Sam figured that these were reporters.

"Mr. Morikawa! We know for a fact that a police investigation took place at your family's store yesterday. Care to give us the details?"

Two men stood at the front of the crowd. One of them called back answers to the reporters. This was Rintaro, the older of the two grandsons from yesterday. The other man was his father, Yosuke.

"Was it a burglary?"

"No—"

"We've heard rumors of a murder. Can you lend any truth to—"

"Those are just rumors. Nothing of the sort has happened here." He offered the cameras a picture-perfect grin.

"Is this connected to your family's tragedy from last year?"

Rintaro's smile disappeared immediately, only to be replaced by a scowl. "She wasn't a member of _my_ family. And there is no connection."

Dean leaned over to Sam. "'Family tragedy?'" he said. Sam nodded.

"Now, if all of you could kindly _leave—" _Rintaro's words seemed polite, but his tone was far from friendly. When the reporters just continued to shout questions at him, he yelled, "Leave _now!_ Or I'll call the police!"

That scattered the crowd. "Goddamned reporters," Dean muttered. Conan gave him a strange look.

"Isn't your dad a reporter?"

"That's different."

"But—"

"Leave it _alone_," Dean said. "We have other things we need to worry about. We need to find out what that 'family tragedy' was."

"That's gotta be it," Sam said. "And once we found out who died, we'll need to learn where their grave is…"

"Why's that?" Conan asked. The brothers ignored him.

"Right," Dean said. "We'll probably need to get access to the records—I doubt anyone would be willing to listen to two foreign kids. I really don't think we could pull off the whole 'disguise' thing right now. We're not exactly police material, here."

It made Sam uncomfortable, but he nodded. They didn't have that many options, as they were clearly not old enough to have the kind of pull they would have needed.

"What?" The volume of Conan's voice was enough to draw the brothers' attention. "You're gonna break into somewhere to get the records?"

Dean shrugged. "Yeah, don't worry about it. We're not gonna take anything, just give it a quick once-over."

"But that's _illegal_," he insisted.

"Yeah, just don't turn us in, all right?"

"You can't do that, it's wrong!"

Sam put a hand on Conan's shoulder. "I don't like it any more than you do, but we have to do what's necessary."

"That's not right!" Conan said. "You shouldn't have to do something illegal to catch someone doing something wrong! It's not really justice, then."

Dean laughed. "You'll get it when you're older, kid."

That seemed to only rile Conan up more. "You know what? I'll prove it to you." He pointed to Yosuke, who'd remained outside after his son had disappeared back into the store. "I bet I can get all the information you need from that guy _without_ having to do anything illegal."

"Right, sure," Dean said. He'd already turned his attention back to Sam. "Go ahead and try."

Conan stomped off towards the man, but Dean and Sam were already focused on their conversation. They contemplated where they'd have to go to look up the information they needed, how long it might take to read what information they found, and what exactly they might find. Before the brothers came up with a concrete plan of action, Conan had returned.

"Struck out, huh?" Dean said. "Sorry, Conan, just leave this to—"

"I got it."

"What?" Dean and Sam both said, almost simultaneously. Their heads both snapped down to face Conan, who was grinning from ear to ear.

"I said, I got the information you said you needed."

_What exactly is this kid?_ Sam wondered.


	7. Salt and Burn

**A/N:** Hello again! Once again, I'd like to thank everyone who followed and favorited this story, and a special thanks to my reviewers, Fluehatraya and Yua-hime. I am so grateful for all of the feedback I'm getting! I hope you enjoy :)

Dean

"_A suicide, an unexplainable death, and EMF. Gotta be a ghost. Time to give her the ol' salt and burn."_

Dean had been able to locate a shovel easily enough. He'd wrapped it in a piece of cloth so that he wouldn't look like a weirdo carrying it down the road and swung it as he walked. He had to admit, Conan had been useful. It had taken him five minutes to collect the information that it would have taken the Dean and Sam hours, or even days, to assemble. But given his reaction to breaking and entering, he probably wouldn't have responded too well to grave desecration, so Dean had sent Conan off with Sam to "do some more research." Sam had known what was going on right away, especially when Dean claimed that he was going to head back to the hotel for the night.

Instead, Dean was headed for a graveyard, off to salt and burn a girl named—

_What was it again?_ All these Japanese names were giving Dean a headache. He got out the piece of paper Conan had given him with a list of the information that he'd gathered. The name of the girl—Michiko Morikawa—was written both in English and those Japanese symbols, so Dean could find the grave.

Michiko Morikawa had committed suicide a little more than a year ago, completely suddenly. In the back of the jewelry store that her family had run, she'd swallowed a lethal dose of potassium cyanide. If you asked Dean, it sounded more like a cover-up for a murder to him—there wasn't a note or anything like that, and that spirit seemed pissed. But it didn't really matter to Dean. As long as he could kill the bitch before she did any more damage, the "why" of the case didn't really matter to him.

Dean was worried that he'd have trouble differentiating all those symbols on the graves and he'd be stuck searching for Michiko's resting place for a while. But the cemetery turned out to be so small that for a second Dean thought he must have the wrong address.

_A family cemetery, maybe?_ Dean thought as he checked the names on the headstones. Most of the last names seemed to match the one on his cheat sheet, so it would stand to reason.

Michiko's grave was the newest one, and it didn't take Dean more than ten minutes to locate. Still, with the time it had taken him to get here, it was already dark when he started digging. _Perfect. Dark night, no one around—this will be simple. I knew we could do it—without Dad's help._

_Not a lot of space here,_ Dean thought, as he dug deeper. He kept waiting for the familiar "thunk" of the shovel striking a wooden coffin, but it never came. His heart sank, but he kept digging, just in case. When the hole was almost as deep as he was tall and he had yet to find anything, he had to admit that something was wrong.

_There's nothing here. _

_Was she cremated?_ That had to be it. The kid hadn't said anything about it, but why would he? They said they wanted the site of the _grave_, and why would anyone assume that they needed a body, specifically? Dean crawled out of the hole. He sighed as he looked down on all that wasted work.

_She must be attached to something else—but what?_ _We'll need to do more research, find out more about this Michiko girl, _Dean thought as he shoveled the dirt back into the hole.

"That's just awesome," he said with a grunt.

"What are you doing?"

The voice made Dean jump, and he nearly dropped the shovel. He gripped the handle tighter once he got his bearings and spun to face the source of the voice. "Who's there?"

"Me," the voice said. Dean recognized it at the same moment that a figure stepped into his field of view.

"Conan. What're you doing here? I thought you were with Sam."

He had his wrist raised level with his eyes, and was staring at Dean through the face of his watch. His serious expression didn't falter at Dean's light tone.

"I thought _you_ were back at the hotel."

"Yeah, well, I didn't want you following me around, all right? Get out of here, Conan. This is no place for kids."

"You'd better tell me what's going on _right now._ You see this watch?" He nodded at his wrist, but didn't lower it. "It shoots a dart that'll put you to sleep in an instant. If you don't give me a good explanation for this, I'll shoot you with it and turn you in to the police."

From any other seven year old kid, the threat would've seemed empty. Something in Conan's eyes and voice, though, left little doubt in Dean's mind that he was telling the truth.

_This just keeps getting better and better._

Then, out of the corner of his vision, Dean saw a shadow move. He knew who it was; he'd know that silhouette anywhere. It didn't seem like Conan had noticed him drawing closer, though, and Dean intended to keep it that way.

_About time you got here. I can't believe you let a grade schooler give you the slip, Sammy._

"Well, there _is_ a good explanation for this, I swear," Dean said, raising his hands above his hands and dropping the shovel as a show of good faith.

"Go ahead and explain, then," Conan said.

Dean grinned. "I don't think so, kid."

Conan had just a moment to look confused before Sam tackled him. They were both sent tumbling to the ground, and Sam immediately had the advantage. He had the kid pinned within three seconds. Conan struggled, but Sam held him tight.

"What are you doing?" Conan yelled. "I'm just a kid! Let me go!"

"In our experience, appearances can be deceiving," Sam muttered. He pulled something out of his jacket, a water bottle that must've been filled with holy water. He dribbled a bit of its contents onto Conan's face and got no reaction. He went through the rest of the normal checks—salt, silver, the whole nine yards—before letting Conan stand up. He'd also taken Conan's watch, Dean was happy to see.

"What is going _on_ with you two?" he yelled. "There's been something off with you since you first came. Are you even who you say you are? What are you _doing_, here?"

_This kid's smart. Really smart._ It wasn't only this deduction that made Dean think this, either. The way he'd found out everything they needed and how easily he'd been able to track Dean managed to impress him more than he'd like to admit.

Dean saw Sam hesitate. He knew that, if given the chance, Dean and Sam together could create a suitable excuse. For the moment, though, it seemed like Sam was at a loss.

_Oh, what the hell._

"Ghosts," Dean said. "We're hunting ghosts."


	8. It's Never Real

**A/N: **Oh my gosh, we're around halfway done! I have this planned out to be around fifteen chapters. This is also my shortest chapter!...and I apologize for that, but they're all normal length after this. Once again, thank you to everyone who followed and favorited this story, and to Fluehatraya and Yua-hime for your reviews!

Conan

"_Ghosts? They don't exist. There has never been any real evidence that they exist. Scientifically, their existence is impossible. And I've solved far too many cases where the murderer tried to hide behind something seemingly supernatural. But it's never real."_

"Ghosts? That's the best you could come up with?"

Conan wanted to laugh in their faces, but they had the upper hand here. Sam had taken him down without any effort at all, and he had no doubt that his brother could do the same. He doubted that even his super-shoes could help him now. As soon as they let him go, he'd call the police on them, but for now he could only play along.

"Dean," Sam muttered, "are you sure that's a good idea?"

"What does it matter?" Dean called back to him. Sam gave him an exasperated sigh and a deep frown, but didn't say anything more. Apparently satisfied, Dean turned his attention back to Conan. "Yeah, ghosts. The thing that killed that old woman was a ghost—the ghost of this woman who killed herself last year, it's looking like."

"If you believe that, you are seriously delusional," Conan said.

Dean seemed amused. "You don't believe in the things that go bump in the night, I take it? Aren't kids your age usually still getting nightmares from all this stuff?"

"Monsters aren't real, and neither are ghosts. Is that what you're trying to do? Scare me? Because it's not going to work."

"I know it's hard to believe," Sam said, "but it's true. All of it—nearly all of those monsters you hear about are real in some shape or form. We're just trying to hunt down the thing that killed that old woman, so that she doesn't keep killing people."

_Not Sam, too. I liked him; he seemed smart. But here he is, trying to tell me that he believes in ghosts! I can't believe this._

Conan shook his head. "The way to stop the killer here is to catch them—the _real_ murderer, I mean. Not chase after some ghost that doesn't exist."

_If they're creating such an elaborate story to cover up whatever they're doing here, could they be involved in the murder? They've never even been to Japan before now, though. Unless that was a lie, too. Nothing about this family seems to be real…_

"We _are_ chasing after the real killer," Dean said. He looked more than a little frustrated, but that wasn't Conan's problem.

_Maybe if he's angry, he'll let something slip…_

"We know we're right, here—we _know _all the signs. We've been doing this our entire lives."

"Hunting ghosts."

"Among other things, yeah," Dean said. "Between the weird way this woman died, and the so-called suicide a year ago, and the EMF we detected at the crime scene—"

"Electromagnetic fields? You're using _that_ as your proof?" Conan scoffed. "You have got to be kidding. That's all pseudoscience. It's real science, clues, the _truth_ that's gonna catch the criminal. There's a real reason for Kazuko's death, and it doesn't include ghosts. It was potassium cyanide—I could see signs of it all over the corpse."

Dean rolled his eyes. "You know what? Let's make a bet. I bet you that all those doctors can't find a good reason for that woman's death, or if there is a reason, it seems impossible. Wait until the results of the autopsy comes out to turn us in. See if we're wrong. But I really don't think we will be."

The next day, Conan figured that the autopsy must have been finished. He found the number for the morgue where Kazuko Morikawa was being held after some searching and called it up as soon as he was sure he was alone.

"Inspector Megure here," Conan said through his bowtie once the man picked up. "I was calling about the results of the autopsy. We're pretty sure what it is, but I'd like to be sure about the cause of death."

Conan heard the man on the other end of the line sigh. "You're not gonna believe me, but…"

Conan felt his heart start to beat faster. _It's probably nothing. Not ghosts, that's for sure._

"You see, if I didn't know any better, I'd say it was potassium cyanide. All the signs are there, and the way she died was consistent with its effects, but…"

"But…?"

"There wasn't any potassium cyanide in her system. Not a drop. I don't know what to think. It's like nothing I've ever seen before…."

Conan hung up the phone.

_There's another explanation, I know it. I just have to think harder, and the real truth will show itself. And that truth is not ghosts…right?_

Conan shook his head. He was a rational person, a _detective._ He wasn't really seven years old. He would not believe in things that, according to all evidence, _did not exist._

The phone rang, making Conan jump. _Maybe it's the medical examiner, telling me he made a mistake…_ Conan picked up the phone.

"You get those results yet?"

_Dean_.

Conan paused.

"Fine, it was a little weird. But there's an explanation for _everything._ They just haven't found it yet."

Dean laughed. "Well, I don't really care _what_ you believe. As long as you don't turn us in to the cops and we can get rid of that ghost, what you think about what we do doesn't really matter."


	9. The Truth Hurts

**A/N: **Hello again, everyone! Ohh, looks like the server was down when I first tried to post this! D: But, anyway, thanks so much to all my followers and favoriters, and to Fluehatraya, for your review! :) I hope you're all enjoying the story, and without further ado, on with the chapter!

Sam

"_The truth hurts. He's better off not believing in all of this, anyway. He'll sleep better at night, that's for sure."_

Sam usually wouldn't mind pushing off their case to hang out like normal kids on vacation. But, of course, they were just pushing off the work for one case in favor of another. The brothers had come up empty-handed on their father's case for the second day in a row, and John was less than pleased. He was sure that there was some connection between Conan and the case, though he'd already abandoned Kogoro Mouri as a source of information. He hoped that a third day with Conan would let Sam and Dean find out the truth. Meanwhile, John was off interviewing other people close to the Mouri family.

_Dean looks antsy_, Sam thought as he looked over at his brother. Dean had told him that there was no body in the grave, and their case wasn't over yet. He was worried that someone else would die on his watch, Sam knew.

Sam tried to take the time to enjoy himself, but the combination of Dean's anxiousness and Conan's suspicion put a damper on his mood.

Sam wasn't too sure what his dad expected them to find, either. Sure, he knew there was something abnormal about Conan, but he wasn't really sure it was because of something supernatural. What was he supposed to tell his father? He's too smart? He knows more than he should? He doesn't act like a first grader? Those weren't the kinds of things that John Winchester wanted to hear. He knew that his father wouldn't be too happy to come up empty on a case this big, but he might have to deal with failure on this one.

"_We have to go check out the jewelry store again, for a start," _Dean had insisted. _"We made a mistake; now we have to fix it. We have to find whatever's binding this chick in the world of the living as son as we can. We don't have time to waste!"_

"_We can't go back to the jewelry store until after dark anyway. We have some time. We might as well spend it like this."_

Dean had huffed and crossed his arms. _"At least we can keep an eye on the kid this way."_

_Though, _Sam thought, _it seems more like he's trying to keep an eye on us._

Conan never let his eyes stray too far from either Sam or Dean. When they had first set off, Conan had asked Ran, "Can we go back to the jewelry store? The one near the street fair?"

"The place where someone got murdered? Why would you want to go back there?"

"I want to help them catch the bad guy!" Conan said. Sam didn't miss the difference in his diction when he spoke to Ran as opposed to Sam or Dean.

"The police are professionals, Conan. They don't need your help."

Conan had pouted, but Ran had remained firm. Conan wasn't the only one who was disappointed; Dean would have wanted nothing more than to head over there. They both had to settle for the usual tourist attractions, though Sam didn't mind as much.

They stopped into a diner to have lunch. Dean was pleased to see American burgers on the menu, but even that wasn't enough to hide his impatience. Someone flipped the radio to the news station halfway through the meal. Sam listened in out of habit.

There was nothing interesting, and Sam was only half-hearing the words. Most of his focus was on the conversation he was having with Ran regarding the best sightseeing places nearby. The sound of a familiar name, though, snapped Sam's attention with back to the radio.

"…Morikawa Rintaro, the heir to the vast Morikawa fortune, found dead in his home by a concerned neighbor. Our sources tell us that this may be a second in a series of murders targeting the Morikawa family. The deceased's brother and father were not available for comment, however…"

"Dean. Did you hear that?"

Sam didn't really need to ask. The look on Dean's face already told him that he'd heard the same thing Sam had. Dean nodded. The brothers slid out of the booth's seats at the same time.

"Sorry, we've gotta go. Thanks for taking us to lunch, though," Dean said. He pulled out a wad of bills and tossed a few on the table, probably more than was needed to pay for his and Sam's lunches.

Ran seemed confused, and started to call out, "Wait, what-?" Sam and Dean just waved back at her, though, and gave no further explanation.

"Wait up, guys!" Sam heard Conan call. He trotted after them, caching them at the door.

"Conan, we don't really have time to—"

"I heard it too. About Rintaro Morikawa? And I know what you're going to do."

"Even so, we don't need you trailing along."

"I can help you guys, though!"

"Really? You want to help us go ghost hunting?" Dean crossed his arms and let his mouth twitch up into a smile.

"Not quite. I want to catch the real criminal—and prove to you guys that the only thing at work here is a murderous human." Conan stood his ground and glared up at the brothers defiantly, despite the fact that they both loomed over him.

"Listen, we can handle this on our own," Sam said. "Actually, it would probably go over faster if you stayed here."

"You don't even know if it was the same MO yet, do you?"

"Well, we're pretty goddamned sure that coincidences don't just happen around us," Dean said.

"I could find out for sure, if you want. One phone call, that's it."

"I don't think a first grader has that kind of pull."

Sam couldn't help but agree, logically, but his gut was telling him not to test this kid.

"I could. How about a bet—one call, and if I don't get the confirmation right away, I'll leave you alone."

"Deal."

Conan strode up to the first pay phone they came across. All three boys crammed into the booth as Conan dialed a number from memory. He had the phone held so that the brothers could hear what was going on, too. Conan pulled his bowtie forward and fiddled with it as the phone rang.

"Inspector Megure, here," a voice said from the other end.

"Yeah, this is Shinichi Kudo."

Sam's eyebrows shot up. That was _not_ the voice he'd become used to hearing from Conan. It the voice of someone much older, probably in his teens. Dean met Sam's eyes, his expression just as stunned.

"Kudo! Didn't expect to hear from you. What do you need?"

"Yeah, I'd be happier if you didn't tell anyone I called." This time, Sam watched closer, and saw that Conan was speaking through a little microphone of the back of his bowtie.

_Is that from the same guy who made the translators? This stuff's amazing!_

"I've been following the Morikawa case. A friend in the area's been giving me all the details. I just heard a second body's been found—the first vic's grandson. Same MO and everything? Jewels and poison?"

Megure sighed. "Yeah, looks like we've got the same psycho on our hands. And we never broadcasted the details of the first murder, so we know it's not a copycat."

'Thanks, Megure. That's all I needed to know."

"Hey, I'll probably be thanking you soon. Happy to help, Shinichi."

Conan reached up to return the phone to the receiver. He met Sam and Dean's stunned expressions with a self-satisfied smirk. "So? Where are we headed first?"


	10. Not the Police

**A/N: **Hello again! I would like to once again offer a big thanks to everyone who followed and favorited my story, and a big thanks to my two Anonymous Guest reviewers and Fluehatraya, for your awesome encouragement. I am honored by your praise. /dramatic bow

Dean

"_We're not the police, we're not the FBI, we're not anybody—no matter what disguises we use. We don't work for the law."_

"Hey, I thought you _wanted_ to come," Dean said as he heard Conan complaining. They'd reached the back door to the jewelry store and were about to go inside, and Dean had just taken out his lock pick.

"You didn't say we'd be _breaking in!_"

"Yeah, well, this is how we do things, so you'd best get used to it or get lost. It's the best way to get some more information on the ghost chick. It's not like we're gonna steal anything."

Dean ignored Conan's look of disapproval as he started on the lock. What did he care what this kid thought of his morals?

"Ah, there we go," Dean said after a few minutes. He pushed the door open. "For a jewelry store, the security on this place is utter shit."

Dean made sure to enter the threshold first, flashlight shining and iron bar at the ready. He'd figured that shotguns might be a little impractical, as shooting one off in a populated area was bound to draw some attention. Sam brought up the rear, brandishing a similar weapon, while Conan stood at the safest place, right between them. He had agreed to hold the EMF meter, but made it obvious that he'd rather not play into the brothers' "delusion." It spiked up and let out a burst of noise as soon as Conan stepped through the door, but Dean had been expecting that, so he ignored it.

The back door opened onto a small entranceway, with four doors leading off in opposite directions. One of them, the one directly across from the exit, must have lead to the main part of the shop. Sam nodded towards this door, saying, "I'll take the main room for now."

"Yeah, fine. Call if you see anything," Dean said. Sam crept out into the next room, leaving Dean to check out the other three doors.

One led to a bathroom. Nothing too exciting there. The girl hadn't died in the bathroom, after all.

The next door led to the most minimalistic office Dean had ever seen. There was only one window, opening out onto a side alley, and there weren't even blinds to adorn it, much less any art to decorate the walls. The only furniture in the room was a rectangular desk and a rolling chair. There was nothing on the top of the desk, so Dean checked out the drawers. They were locked, of course, but that hardly mattered to Dean. The inside of the drawers looked like filing cabinets, with records of purchases going back more than a decade, by the looks of them. The most interesting thing was Michiko Morikawa's signature as the seller on a lot of the receipts from a lot of the more recent receipts. There was nothing from this past year, of course. It was doubtful that one of these thin, impersonal slips of paper meant enough to her to attach her spirit to, though.

That left the final door.

Even when Dean unlocked it, he had some difficulty getting the door open. That, combined with the layer of dust settling over everything, made it seem like this second, smaller office hadn't been opened in a year.

_Looks like the right place to me._

This time, the walls and shelves were covered in photographs. Most of them included one woman, a smiling lady with light brown hair and dark eyes. Dean picked up one of the frames. "This must be Michiko," he said. "This is that other guy, the dad, with her. Yosuke?"

Conan glanced at the picture and nodded. "He was her father, too, but from the way that Yosuke and Rintaro were talking before, it sounded like they had different mothers. Remember how Rintaro said she wasn't really a part of his family?"

"Huh," Dean mumbled. He returned the picture to its place on the desk. _What kind of an asshole talks about his family like that?_

Dean started out searching the desk while Conan checked out the shelves. He found nothing but more receipts and a couple of letters that were indecipherable to Dean. He was shoving these into his pockets for someone who could read Japanese to take a look at later when Conan called out, "Hey! I found a photo album. There's labels on it and everything."

Dean strode over and crouched next to Conan, offering him the light of their flashlight.

The first few pictures were old, and contained a smiling family of three: a man, Yosuke, an unfamiliar woman, and a baby that must have been Michiko. "Mom, Dad, and me," Conan read out from the captions. There was one picture, seemingly out of place, in the middle of this section, of an elderly woman sitting all alone and glaring at the camera. "Grandmother," Conan said. "Very formal, too."

Then, the pictures with the mother suddenly stopped. Suddenly, there was a wedding: of Yosuke and the woman Dean had seen with him the other day at the crime seen. "Daddy and Akiko," the picture said. Michiko didn't seem to be present.

"As interesting as this family study is, what exactly is useful about this?"

"If we can find out what happened in her life, maybe we can find out what happened in her death," Conan said as he continued to peruse the pages. Dean pulled the book out of his hands and shoved it into his jacket. "We'll have more time to look at this later, but we might not get another chance in here. Keep looking around."

Conan looked like he might argue, but then a voice called out from outside the room, "Dean!"

Sam was yelling, and he sounded like he was in trouble. Dean didn't hesitated as he burst out of the room and barreled into the jewelry store.

It was her: Michiko. Dean only took the time he needed to identify her as non-human before he jumped in to help his brother.

Sam was holding his own, swinging the iron bar with great precision and speed, but the ghost was re-forming as quickly as she was dispersing. Sam had to make the effort to dodge the various pieces of jewelry that she sent flying at his head, too.

"Stay away!" she yelled out. "Get away from me! Just let me do what I was meant to! It's their fault, THEIRS! I was never one of them. Never one of them. Never—"

Dean threw a fist full of rock salt at her. Dean's aim was spot-on; the woman disappeared as soon as it hit her. This time, she was gone long enough for Dean and Sam to catch their breath.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean asked.

Sam nodded. "I'm fine. I guess I was getting close, though, because she came out of nowhere. But…" Sam's gaze caught on something behind Dean. Thinking it might be the ghost, Dean spun around and tightened his grip on his weapon. But there was nothing there. Nothing but Conan, standing in the doorway and staring at the place where the ghost had disappeared with wide eyes and his mouth wide open.

"Son of a bitch," Dean muttered. _This is why I didn't want to bring him along._

"That's…that shouldn't be possible," Conan said. "That was…that was…"

"A ghost," Dean finished. Any normal kid would be screaming and running by now, but Conan seemed more in denial than anything else.

"Dean, we've got to get him out of here," Sam whispered. Dean nodded. He strode over to Conan and tugged at his shoulder.

"Come on. It's not safe here."

"Yeah…yeah, no, but what about the case?"

_The case? That's what he's worried about right now? _

"We can talk about the case somewhere safer. Now, let's _go._"

Finally, Dean and Sam together managed to convince Conan to follow them out of the jewelry store.


	11. The Only Truth Left

**A/N: Finally, Conan's reaction to the supernatural! Thanks to everyone who's been reading this, my new followers and favorites, and my awesome reviewers, Fluehatraya and Alyss Penedo. You guys are great! **

Conan

"_I can't believe this. Ghosts? The evidence is telling me that everything I've thought about them is wrong. Could this really be the only truth left for me?"_

Conan's mind was a haze of white noise. He went back over what he'd just seen again and again in his mind. He tried to keep it down to pure observation, without any of his own assumptions to cloud the facts.

He had been in the back of the jewelry store. Dean's brother had called his name and Dean sprinted into the other room. Conan followed, and once he was in the main room, he had seen…

_This_ was the part Conan was having trouble with. He didn't think that what he had witnessed was possible, but he _knew_ what he had seen. His observations were never off; he counted on himself for that, at least.

_That was a ghost_, the assembled facts and observations told him. _Ghosts are real._

_I can't believe I'm really accepting this_, Conan thought. He squeezed his hands into tight fists. He didn't need to pinch himself to know that this wasn't a dream, but he wished to god that it was.

"You all right?" Both of the brothers had crouched down to Conan's level, and Dean had reached forward and grasped his shoulders in his hands.

Conan hadn't protested much when the brothers had led him away from the jewelry store. He barely even registered the path they had taken, though now that he looked, he thought the park they had stopped in seemed familiar. There was no one else around, and for that Conan was thankful.

"I'm okay," Conan managed to say. "But that was…a ghost? You weren't lying before?"

"That would be what we were trying to tell you." Dean stood up, apparently satisfied with the state of Conan's mental health.

Sam offered him a weak smile. "Unfortunately, it's all real. Really, it would have been better if you didn't know…I wish I didn't, but you can't go back now."

"But you know how to stop the…" Conan's rational mind struggled to use the word "ghost" in serious conversation. "…the killer?"

Dean nodded. "That's our job."

Conan would have thought it strange that two people as young as these brothers had such a rough job—that is, if Conan himself wasn't living proof that you were never too young to be good at what you did.

"What do we have to do, then?"

"That's it? No more freaking out, or denial, or anything?"

Conan smiled. "If it's the truth, denying it will only delay the inevitable. It's easier just to accept it and work with it. So, what do we have to do next?"

Dean grinned and glanced at his brother. "I think I like this kid."

Sam sat cross-legged on the ground. "So, we have to find out what Michiko Morikawa's soul is bound to—what's holding her in our world. Usually, it's the body, but since she was cremated, it must be something else. An object that means something to her. Then, we salt and burn it, and that's it. She's free."

"No more revenge from beyond the grave," Dean added.

"But…if this is for revenge, what took her so long? Why wait? It's been over a year since she died, right?"

"Maybe she was a good person in life," Dean said, though from his tone it was obvious that he hadn't spent much time thinking about it. "It could've taken a while for her to build up all that anger, enough to drive her crazy."

"You mean she wouldn't have murdered anyone if she hadn't become a ghost?"

"Probably not. Death does things to people, lets their violent emotions take control. And most of the ones that stay have a reason," Dean told him. "Enough time as a ghost would make anyone into a potential murderer."

The thought made Conan uncomfortable. He'd never understood what drove people to kill, and had always sworn that he'd never kill, or even let anyone die. But if he died himself, and became a ghost…would he turn into a murderer?

_No, stop. Focus on the case._

"Right. So we need to find something that was important to Michiko in life. I can help, right?"

Sam frowned, but Dean cut him off before he could say anything. "Yeah, why not? You've been a big help so far."

"There could be something in that photo album you picked up, right?"

For a moment, Dean just stared at him blankly. Then, his face brightened, and he reached into his jacket. "Jeez, I almost forgot I had that! Thanks." He pulled out the small booklet of plastic-enclosed photos and laid it out on the ground in front of Sam. He took his place beside him, and Conan followed soon after.

As they flipped through the pages, Conan kept an eye out for any patterns. At the same time, though, he found himself watching the girl, Michiko, grow up. She looked so happy in all of the pictures, as did everyone around her.

_But now she's dead, and a killer besides._

"Hey, what about this?" Conan pointed at something dangling from Michiko's neck in one of the more recent photos. "I've seen that locket in every picture since she looked like she was five years old. Could that be it?"

The brothers scanned back over the photo album. Seeing that Conan was right, Dean grinned at him and patted him on the shoulder.

"That looks like a very strong possibility. I think you got it, Conan," Sam said, smiling at him. He turned to Dean. "Hopefully, it's still in the jewelry store. Shouldn't be too hard to get to, considering how easily we got in tonight…"

"Awesome. We can go back right now, destroy the thing, and be done tonight! Easy."

"Wait, wait!" Conan said. "That's it? That's all you're going to do?"

"That's all there is _to_ do," Dean insisted. Conan shook his head.

"But you think she got murdered, right? That the suicide was faked?"

"Yeah, and?"

"_And_ don't you want to find out who really killed her? Bring the murderer to justice?"

Dean laughed. Actually _laughed_ at him, much to Conan's frustration. "Sorry, kid, but that's not really our job. We're just trying to stop the ghost. We're not detectives."

"Well I _am,"_ Conan said. He caught Dean's gaze and didn't look away. "And I think it's only fair to catch the killer that we _can_ expose. I understand why Kazuko and Rintaro's deaths have to go unexplained, but can't we solve what we can?"

"Conan, I'm sorry, but we can't. We can't get the police involved, and we're not equipped to handle human murder cases," Sam said.

"Give me a day."

"Huh?"

"Give me a day to solve the murder. Just wait that long. I swear I can find the murderer and the evidence to convict them. I just need a little bit of time. I can do it without getting the police involved until it's time to bring the killer in, I swear."

Conan knew he shouldn't be saying all of this. He'd completely blown any impression they might have that Conan was a normal seven-year old, but at that moment he didn't care. They had shared their secrets with him, after all, and he'd probably never see them again after they left for America. All he wanted was to be able to catch a real criminal.

For a moment, Dean just watched him. Finally, he nodded. "Fine. _One day._ We'll give you any help we can, though."


	12. Like a School Report

**A/N: **Thank you all so much for all the support I've been getting—my new followers and favorites, as well as my amazing reviewers, Yua-hime, Fluehatraya, Alyss, and Nekogami Bastet. Your support really means a lot!

Sam

"_I don't mind the research too much. It feels like I'm just working on a school report sometimes, if I don't think too hard about what I'm doing."_

Planted in an out-of-the-way corner of the library with a Japanese-to-English dictionary at his side, his laptop in front of him, and a pile of newspapers awaiting him, Sam was ready to focus on the research he needed to get done.

_We're helping a first grader solve a murder. Even for us, this is a little out of the ordinary._ Considering everything that had happened, Sam knew that Conan was far from normal. He wanted to know what was going on with him, sure, but he'd forced himself to hold back from questioning Conan. That could wait until after they'd finished the murder case. _I want to send a real killer to justice for once, too._

After they'd met up again today, Conan had left with Dean to see if they could find any other clues at the jewelry store. Dean was confident that now that Conan knew the full story, they wouldn't be forced to leave again. Dean was more than capable of protecting Conan while he searched around the scene of the year-old crime. Sam, on the other hand, had come to the library to see what he could find out about the murder and the Morikawa family's past.

The first thing Sam did was load up the translation CD onto his laptop. It was his father's. He'd been using it to do research on his own case. Sam thought he would have to settle for the dictionary, because the translators Conan gave them didn't work with written materials, but Dean had surprised him when he had slipped him the CD.

_I can't believe he actually stole from Dad,_ Sam thought as he waited for the program to load. _I didn't think he could._

Sam started out his research on the computer, which would be easier to work with using the CD. He was surprised to find that his search didn't even yield a mention of Michiko Morikawa's death. His initial scans through the papers at the time of her death also gave him nothing.

_What's going on? Rintaro's death came up on the radio the same day, so…_

Sam went over the newspapers again, this time with a more careful eye. Finally, he found what he was looking for. It was obvious why he didn't see it on the first run-through. Michiko's death took up no more than two sentences of the article. The rest was information on Rintaro and Kohei and how they had become the new heirs to the Morikawa fortune. The interview with Rintaro mentioned Michiko only as "an unsuitable legacy for the Morikawas."

_That's pretty suspicious. I guess they could have just not liked her, but it seems like too good of a coincidence for Rintaro and the others. But there's nothing here that proves they were even involved…_

Further back, most of the information on the Morikawas were all society pieces: what parties they had attended, what charities they donated to, who they married or were dating…pretty boring stuff, in Sam's opinion. He supposed it was better than the bloody deaths that usually adorned their research, though.

Sam kept an eye out for any mention of Michiko, but they were few and far between. She didn't seem to attend any parties, even those thrown by her family, and was mentioned only in passing as the eldest child of Yosuke or the older half-sister of Rintaro and Kohei.

_Half-sister, _Sam noted. _That could be something._

Sam had to switch to microfiche slides of the older newspapers to find the whole story of the Morikawa family tree.

The story of Yosuke Morikawa's first marriage had come from something that looked suspiciously like a tabloid to Sam. "Morikawa Heir Elopes with Sweetheart, Mother Furious," the headline read. It would seem that Michiko was the result of this marriage. Her mother died eight years after they were married.

The tabloids seemed to have lost interest in the Morikawas after that. It looked like the family worked to keep themselves scandal-free, at least. The high society pages of local newspapers contained the rest of the information Sam was looking for.

Yosuke's second marriage was covered in excruciating detail, from the engagement all the way through to the birth of their children. Sam skimmed.

Akiko was the name of his second wife. She was shown at the engagement as joyful but reserved, and was quoted as "lucky to have been chosen by Mrs. Morikawa."

_That's the first woman who died, right?_

The birth of both Rintaro and Kohei were heralded by numerous pictures, many of them with the old woman shown smiling over them.

_I almost miss the blood and guts. It might be nice to have a life like that, but it's not too fun to read about._

Sam returned all of the materials he'd collected to their rightful places, stretching out his legs as he went. He glanced at his watch, and was surprised to see that a couple hours had passed since he'd sat down. He didn't know how his dad did it; his research was far more thorough than Sam's had been, and he barely paused to sleep. Sam was getting good at the research, though, even if he still had a long ways to go. Dean was by far the better hunter, but Sam had the advantage in this area.

_At least research skills are useful in the normal world._

Sam supposed that he should give Dean a call and head on over to the jewelry store with what he'd found. He went to one of the pay phones in the library's entrance and dialed the number Conan had given him.

"Oh, good! I was just about to call you!" Conan said as he picked up.

"I just finished the research. I was about to head back now. Did you find anything?"

"I think so. I've got a pretty good idea of who did it, and how, but I just want to confirm some of the details with what you looked up."

Sam blinked. _That was fast. Can he really solve a murder case in such a short amount of time? _Sam's sense of amazement and suspicion regarding Conan grew, but he pushed it away for the time being.

"What do you need to know?"

Conan asked him a series of questions regarding the Morikawa family, and Sam was surprised to find himself confirming most of Conan's suspicions. He added details to a lot of the stories, sure, but the boy had hypothesized most of the family's background on his own.

"That's it, then! I know everything I need to. Now I just need to bring the police over to the jewelry store and tell them everything," Conan finally said.

_Dean's not gonna be happy about the police being involved._

"How are you gonna get the police to believe a first grader, exactly? Will they even listen to you?"

"Oh, don't worry about that. That's easy; I've done it tons of times before. I've got a plan."


	13. Not Our Style

**A/N: **We're approaching the end—this is the last Dean chapter! D: I'd like to thank everyone so much for their support along the way. To my new followers, and my reviewers, Yua-Hime, Alyss Penedo, and Fluehatraya, thank you so much!

Dean

"_This kid would never survive in our line of work. We don't really do justice—it's not our style. And our cases don't always end with nice, neat happy endings."_

Dean followed Sam to make sure he got to the library before heading off with Conan to the jewelry store. There were plenty of phones in the library, and Conan gave Sam the number for his cell phone, so he was confident that Sam would be able to contact Dean if he needed him.

"Keep in touch, Sammy."

"I'll be fine, Dean. And I'll be busy, so don't freak out and come running over here if I don't call you every hour on the hour, all right?"

Dean laughed, but the thought of being out of contact with his brother in a foreign country still made him nervous. He quashed his anxiety, though, and saw Sam off with a smile.

"Is it okay to leave him by himself? He's only twelve, right?"

_And here we are again, with you talking like you're not seven freaking years old._

Dean tried not to let his worries show. "He'll be fine. He can take care of himself; we both can. And besides, he's good at all that research stuff."

"And it's safer than what we're doing, right?"

Dean said nothing for a moment. _He's a little too sharp, isn't he? _"Right. That, too."

They walked in silence for a few blocks before Conan asked, "So, is there anything I need to know about these ghosts? Before we walk right in there?"

"Well, you really just need to know the basics…when someone dies and refuses to pass on, usually because they have some unfinished business, like revenge, they become a ghost. They're weak to salt and iron, and if you can form a salt circle, they won't be able to cross it."

"Could we…I don't know, talk to her? Ask her who killed her, and how?"

Dean snorted. "I hope that's not your only plan, kid, because that'll never work. She'd kill us as soon as look at us, if we give her the chance."

"If she's looking for revenge, though, why would she hurt us? We had nothing to do with her death."

"Yeah, sure, but after being a ghost for this long, it won't matter. She'll just see us as obstacles getting in the way of her mission."

Conan frowned and fell silent. "Well then, what about the way those people died recently? Those were both pretty strange deaths. Could that have something to do with how she was killed?"

"Oh yeah, definitely. That's almost always how it works. It's actually how we find most of our cases: really weird deaths."

"So she was definitely killed by potassium cyanide then, because that's how both present-day victims seemed to die…" By the way Conan was staring off at nothing, it didn't seem like he was talking to Dean any longer. "But the jewels in the mouth…again, that's harder to figure out. Could it be symbolic? Like, drowning in wealth? Hmm…."

"It's usually not that complicated. Maybe she chocked to death on a ring, or something."

The look Conan gave Dean right then was withering in its contempt. When he spoke, though, his tone was even. "Killing someone by making them choke to death is a pretty unreliable method. And besides, how could she choke to death and be poisoned?"

_Come on, that was mostly a joke. Sorry we can't all be child geniuses._

"Well, it would still be good to check out all of the jewelry in that store. Maybe there's a clue somewhere…"

When they arrived back at the store, Dean stopped Conan before he went in. He handed Conan the box of salt he'd brought while he removed his iron bar from the cloth he'd wrapped it in along the way. "Here. If you see a ghost, toss some salt at it. Make sure you aim right for the center."

Conan stared at the box. "Won't throwing all this salt around mess up the crime scene?"

Dean managed to stop himself from snickering, but he still wound up with an amused grin on his face. "The crime scene we're looking at is over a year old. I don't think there's much of it left, anyway."

It seemed like someone had cleaned up the jewelry store after the ghost had gone nuts throwing stuff around the night before. It wasn't the police; they would have left everything as it was so they could investigate the break-in.

_It must have been the ghost. But why?_ Dean remembered the receipts he'd found in the first office, the ones signed with Michiko's name. _I guess she's still running the shop, tidying up even after her death._ It was good for them, though. If the police suspected a break in from the mess, Dean and Conan would have never been able to sneak in today.

Dean stood guard while Conan went through and checked out all of the jewelry. He tapped the iron bar lightly against the side of his leg. His eyes darted over the scene and he tensed at every shadow. It was only a matter of time before she showed up, that much Dean knew. He wished they could just kill the ghost and skip all of this murder investigation. If they hadn't already promised the kid that they would give him a day, he'd have found that necklace and burned it by now. He just wanted to get it over with.

"Hey, I found the necklace from the pictures," Conan said, turning around to face Dean. In that moment when his attention was diverted, the air behind Conan flickered, and then the ghost was there.

"Conan, duck!" Dean yelled. The kid responded fast; he was down near the ground by the time Dean swung his weapon over his head and at the ghost's center. She managed to move slightly out of the way, so the weapon only skimmed her. After she disappeared, it only took a moment for her to reappear behind them. This time, though, Dean was much closer, and he managed to swing the bar through the center of her stomach.

"That should buy us a little time. Come on, let's make a salt circle." Dean reached for the salt in Conan's hands, but he pulled away.

"No. I can't investigate if we're trapped in a tiny circle."

"Well, it's pretty hard to investigate with a ghost attacking you every few minutes, too! I'm the professional here, let me handle it!"

Conan ignored him. He actually turned his back on Dean and _ignored him._ Dean scowled.

"Ms. Morikawa?" Conan called out.

_Oh god, he's gonna get the both of us killed._

"Conan, stop!"

"We're here to help you. We know that you didn't kill yourself, that someone murdered you. We _know._ We're trying to get you justice! Isn't that better than revenge?"

Silence.

"I know that you don't want to kill anyone, that it's this whole ghost thing that's making you into a killer. But you don't want to be a killer, right? You're a good person, I'm sure of it."

The air in front of Conan shimmered. Dean was there in an instant, weapon at the ready, but Conan raised a hand to stop him.

"I guess you can't do anything _but_ kill like you are now, but we can do more than that if you just let us. We can bring your killer to justice, _real justice._ If you just let us."

The ghost took form slowly. She didn't move, and her expression was one of guilt and sadness. She was completely different than the angry psycho who had attacked them not a moment ago. Conan smirked at Dean, as if to say, "I told you so."

"You got lucky," Dean said.

"Ms. Morikawa, please. Just tell us who killed you."

Michiko opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out. Her lips moved, but there was no sound. She seemed to get more and more frustrated as her attempts to speak yielded only silence.

"What's wrong?" Conan asked, turning to Dean.

"Without all that anger powering her, she's having trouble keeping her form. See, look," Dean said, pointing at the ghost. She appeared less solid than she'd been even a minute ago, and was fading fast. Dean could see straight through her, like she was a piece of colored glass.

Eventually, the ghost gave up on trying to speak. She just stared at Conan, looking like she wanted to cry. Then, she started to pace around the store. She came to rest behind the necklace that she was bound to, hovering over it pointedly. She started to fiddle with the matching necklace around her own neck, pressing it against her lips.

Dean was staring down at the necklace in the display case when he heard Conan gasp. Before he could ask what was going on, though, Conan spoke. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm a detective. I can solve your case. It'll be fine."

The ghost smiled at him before fading away completely. Conan returned his attention to Dean. "Okay. I just want to check up on a few things here, and call Sam to make sure everything matches up with his research. But I'm pretty sure this case is all but solved."

"Oh really? Were you planning on letting me in on it any time soon?"

"First I'll call Sam. Then, once he gets here, I'll call the police over, along with all the suspects. Then I'll reveal the real murderer."

_Well, someone's got a flair for the dramatic._


	14. Unsolved

**A/N:** Second to last chapter, woot! ^ ^ The mystery is solved—I hope you all like the conclusion! Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading, following, or favoriting, and a big thanks to my reviewers, Fluehatraya and Alyss Penedo!

Conan

"_I can reveal the truth about one murder, but not the other two. Those murders will just go unsolved…forever. I know the truth, but for once, there's nothing I can do about it."_

Conan and Sam were already hidden behind the jewelry store's counter by the time Inspector Megure, the police, and the four remaining suspects arrived. Dean was leaning against one of the displays, arms crossed.

"What's going on here?" Inspector Megure asked him. "You're one of the witnesses, Dean…Morgan, right? Where's Kudo? He's the one who called us here."

"I'm a friend of his. He couldn't make it, so he's been having me give him all the info and he told me all the stuff he figured out."

"I do remember him saying something about a friend in the area…but it's _you?_"

Dean shrugged. "Do you want the information or not?"

"He's solved these two murders?" 

"Not really…he said he wants to solve the _real_ murder that happened here one year ago. The murder of Michiko Morikawa, which was made to look like a suicide."

Conan watched for one person's reaction from his hiding place, and was pleased to see the suspect pale. The other three people looked confused.

"A murder? You're telling me my daughter didn't kill herself?" Yosuke yelled.

"I don't think so. There's just one thing I want to check out in the case files first, though."

"Right. Kudo asked us to bring those with us. There's not much, because it was deemed a suicide pretty quickly, but here they are."

Dean skimmed the files he had been handed. After a minute, he tapped his foot on the ground twice in quick succession.

_That's the signal. I was right, on both accounts, then._ Conan readied his voice-changing bowtie, which he'd already set to Dean's voice. The speaker was attached to a part of Dean's translator.

Dean hadn't been too happy at first to have Conan speak for him.

"_Why can't you just tell me everything beforehand and I'll tell the cops?"_

"_It's important that we get all the details correct. One mistake could mean the killer walks free."_

Finally, he had gotten Dean to agree. He was the only person out of the three of them who could do this; either Sam or Conan would have been too young for the police to take seriously. Even Dean, at sixteen years old, was a stretch. It was only Shinichi Kudo's name that had gotten them this far. _Still_, Conan thought, _he's a much better actor for this than Kogoro. He won't be asleep, and the translator will hide any inaccurate lip movements._

Dean fell silent, and Conan took over.

"First, the motive. We found a lot of interesting things about Ms. Michiko when we looked closer…though she was the eldest child of Yosuke Morikawa, heir to the family's fortune, she was often shunned by the rest of the family, probably because Yosuke married her mother without Mrs. Morikawa's approval. Is that right, Mr. Morikawa?"

"Y-yes, that's right. She didn't come from a high-class family, and my mother despised her…I fell in love with her at first sight, though, and my Michiko…I loved them both, but Mother never acknowledged them."

"After she died, you remarried, though. This time to a woman of her choosing, Mrs. Akiko here, yes?"

"That's right.," Akiko answered. "We've been very happy together. Until recently, of course…"

"Yes, and you had two children together, Rintaro and Kohei. They seemed to be the perfect heirs to the Morikawa name: charming, sociable, intelligent….and well-bred, right? They were Mrs. Morikawa's favorites, right?"

"My mother played favorites, I'm sorry to admit," Yosuke said. "But you're not suggesting that she…?"

"There's no such thing as coincidences, Mr. Morikawa. Your mother and sons all benefited from Michiko's death."

"No, no!" Kohei spoke up. "You haven't even proved that her death was anything but suicide! You can't accuse us of anything!"

Dean smirked.

_A much better actor,_ Conan thought.

"I have evidence that it was a murder, don't worry about that. She was poisoned with potassium cyanide, and the killer later moved her body and planted the bottle of poison to make it look like she'd taken it herself." 

"Mr. Morgan, no," Megure interrupted. "We checked everywhere for traces of poison, but nothing was found except on her fingers. She hadn't been out anywhere that day, and both Mr. Rintaro, Mr. Kohei, and Ms. Kazuko all had alibis for the time of her death."

"Michiko had a habit of biting on her necklace, didn't she? Anyone who's been around her enough would know this. The poison was planted on the locket that she always wore."

"Do we look like fools to you? We know how to do our jobs. The necklace was one of the first places we looked, and there was nothing on it."

"Yes…nothing on the necklace she was found dead in. But that _wasn't_ the one that killer her. Here, take a look." Dean handed over the photo album, which Megure accepted begrudgingly. "In every picture in this book, she's wearing the same necklace: a silver locket. She never took it off, it seemed like."

"I remember that necklace!" Yosuke blurted out. "It was a family heirloom. I gave it to her when she was five…I can't remember a time when she wasn't wearing it."

"Right. You can see so yourself, right, Inspector."

"Yes, and your point is?"

"Look at the photos of Michiko when she was found. Notice anything different?"

Megure took the case file and looked at the photos. At first, it was just a quick glance, but then his gaze sharpened. "The necklace…it's different! Not a locket, but a sapphire pendant!"

"So why would Michiko pick that day, the day she died, to all of a sudden wear a new necklace after over twenty years of never taking off that locket? And where did the locket go? If it was so important to her, it should have been found among her personal belongings somewhere, right? But it wasn't. Probably, the killer switched the necklaces when he was moving the body."

"It's strange, yes, but hardly incriminating."

"How about if we could show you the necklace? It's been right here, behind a locked display case, this whole time."

Dean moved off the display he'd been resting on, revealing the silver locket beneath. "Check it for potassium cyanide. If it's been preserved like this, there should still be some traces of poison, even after all this time."

The crime tech guys descended on the necklace. While they removed it gingerly from the case and ran their tests, Dean and the Inspector both watched each other.

"Inspector, he was right! There's traces of potassium cyanide on this locket!"

Megure didn't look too surprised. He'd know not to be too stunned when Shinichi's deductions turned out to be correct after all the cases he'd seen Shinichi solve. It wasn't over yet, though.

"All right, that does make the suicide more questionable…but without proof to connect her brothers or grandmother to the crime, there's nothing we can do."

"It's not true!" Kohei said. "Please, I had nothing to do with any of this!"

No one seemed to pay him much mind.

"But I do have proof. Did you know this store keeps a record of all of the purchases made? It looks like Michiko was quite fastidious. The second necklace, the sapphire one, it was bought the day before Michiko's death…by Rintaro Morikawa."

Dean passed them the slip of paper he'd been keeping in his pocket, the receipt that confirmed the details that Conan had just given them. Conan had found it in Michiko's office; it had seemed that she hadn't had time to file it into the main office before she was killed.

"But that doesn't have anything to do with me, even though Rintaro killed her! Please, I didn't know anything about it!" Kohei yelled.

"But Rintaro's alibi was almost completely reliant on you. And the way you've been acting this entire time…it seems like you must be a part of this. An accessory, maybe?"

"Please, please, I didn't do anything! Rintaro told me to meet up with him that day. He was late, but he made me promise not to tell anyone…said he had business to take care of, but when Michiko turned up dead, I….I didn't know what to think. Rintaro and Grandmother, they threatened me not to say anything….Please! Please, I didn't do anything."

"Kohei, you…?" Yosuke started. His face was pained.

"Dad, please, I…I didn't know anything, please…" There were tears in his eyes. Megure watched the pair of them, father and son, and sighed.

"Kohei Morikawa…I'm afraid we'll have to take you down to the station for questioning. I don't think you'll be getting out of this one. Likely, you'll be charged as an accessory to murder."

Koehi continued to resist, so the police had to put him in handcuffs just to get him in the car. Inspector Megure thanked Dean for his help, and asked if he would be seeing Dean around any longer. Dean just grinned and shook his head. It took a long time before the police had thinned out enough for Dean, Sam, and Conan to slip out unnoticed.

_I did it. Another case solved, another killer revealed…though it looks like he was dead already. Still, I should be content, right?_

Somehow, it didn't seem that easy any more.


	15. Loose Ends

**A/N:** Here it is, the final chapter! I am so grateful for the amazing response I got on this story: to everyone who read this story, enjoyed it enough to follow or favorite, and those who took the time to write all of these awesome reviews, I thank you :) And now, on with the last chapter!

Sam

"_In our family, the cases always seem to wrap up with a few loose ends. If we're lucky, though, we wind up doing some good along the way."_

Sam and Dean had placed themselves on a set of chairs in the hotel lobby, their bags already packed and ready beside them. Their father was still up in the hotel room, finishing up the last details of the case, fruitless as it had been. It was much easier to escape his frustration when the brothers were outside of the hotel room and out of his reach. And besides, they were waiting to say good-bye to one last person.

"Before he gets here," Dean said, "I just wanted to let you know…I burned the necklace."

"What? Why? After Kohei got arrested, there was no trace of Michiko anywhere on the locket or around the store. It looked like she'd already passed on by herself."

Dean shrugged. "Better safe than sorry."

Sam bristled at Dean's nonchalance. "But that was a key piece of evidence in the trial for Michiko's murder! I know that Kohei all but confessed, but…"

"But nothing, Sam. When they find out someone broke into the evidence locker and destroyed it, it'll only make that guy look more suspicious, like someone's covering it up. And besides…the trial's not really a part of our job, is it?" Dean leveled his gaze at him, daring Sam to challenge him. Sam glared at him, but said nothing.

_I shouldn't be surprised. We killed the ghost and that's all that matters to him. Just when I thought that something might finally be set right the normal way, that we might have really helped to put a killer in jail…_

"Hey, Conan!" Dean called out as he waved at the front entrance. Sam turned around and saw Conan smiling and heading towards them. The argument about Dean's destruction of evidence would have to wait; Sam didn't want to disappoint him, make him think that his hard work might go to waste.

"Thanks for coming to see us off," Sam said. They had already given back the translators Conan had given them, but it hardly mattered considering how well Conan spoke English.

"Of course. I had to, right? We did solve a case together, after all."

"You were awesome, man!" Dean said. "I can't believe how fast you solved that thing, even the supernatural parts. With a little training, you'd make a great hunter."

Conan looked more than a little uncomfortable. "I don't really think so. Just finding out that ghosts are _real_…I'm still not sure I'm handling it at all."

"Could've fooled me. You were great, seriously!"

"Dean, stop," Sam said. "Since when are you some kind of hunter recruiter? Do you really want someone else to have the life that we have?"

Dean rolled his eyes. "Of course you'd say that. But you know, Sammy, we help a lot of people—we save _lives._ Doesn't that make up for not having some normal life? We're doing _good_, Sam. What's so bad about that?" 

"I can help people too, you know," Conan interrupted. "I'm a detective. I catch killers, people who are trying to hurt others, just like you guys. Right?"

"Right, yeah," Dean said, though he sounded less than enthused. Sam, on the other hand, smiled warmly at him.

They fell into silence for a few seconds before Sam said, quietly, "You called yourself a detective…and I have no doubt that you're totally serious. But at your age…you're not a normal kid, are you? You acted different around Ran and other adults, but it's completely obvious when you're talking to us."

Dean frowned at him. "Sam, come on—"

"You're right," Conan said. "I guess it's too late for me to deny that now. But I'm not the only one hiding things about myself. You guys aren't exactly a normal family, right?"

Sam's mouth twitched up. "Right."

Sam was ready to drop the subject, but Dean was still staring at Conan with an appraising eye. After a moment, he stuck out his hand towards the kid. Conan titled his head. "What-?"

"I'm Dean Winchester. And this is my brother, Sam Winchester."

Conan's eyes widened.

"Those are our real names."

Conan didn't move for a few moments. He stared at the offered hand, brow furrowed. Finally, he reached out and grasped Dean's hand.

"Shinichi Kudo."

"Huh?"

"As long as you promise not to tell _anyone_…that's _my_ real name."

"That's the name you gave to the police to get them to do what you wanted, right?" Sam said. "But that's really you?"

Sam didn't recognize the name Conan had given, but he must have been someone important, to have the police trust him that much.

Conan nodded.

"You've got some pull, huh, kid?" Dean said with a grin.

"Yup, that's me—savior of the police force and teen detective, Shinichi Kudo. Though I don't really fit the image so much any more, huh?"

"Wait a minute," Dean said. "'Teen?' How old are you?"

"I'm seventeen. I'm kind of stuck looking like this now, though…"

"You're older than me? You've got to be kidding." Sam couldn't help but grin at the crestfallen expression on Dean's face.

"I guess I am. Maybe I should call you 'kid,' huh?"

Dean frowned and shot Conan a glare while Sam laughed.

"Why are you like this, though?" Dean asked. "Did you get cursed, or something?"

"Not quite…I was poisoned. It's a long story, but it wound up with me shrinking down to the body of a first grader."

"And taking on a fake name?" Sam asked.

"Yeah. I'd rather not mention why, but I really need to keep it a secret, the fact that I'm still alive. The only reason I told you two is because you're leaving the country today. So, if you could keep it a secret for me…?"

"Of course," Dean assured him.

"Believe me, we're great at keeping secrets," Sam added.

They moved onto other, lighter, subjects. For a few minutes, Sam could almost pretend that they were just a normal group of kids talking in a hotel lobby. Then, a familiar voice broke Sam's illusion.

"Dean, Sam, it's time to go."

John had appeared beside them, suitcase in hand. He barely paused at the place where the brothers were sitting before striding ahead towards the front door. Dean scrambled after him, calling out a quick goodbye to Conan before taking his place at his father's side. Sam lingered a little longer.

"Good-bye, Sam," Conan said. "Maybe I'll see you again sometime?" 

Sam shook his head, a weak smile spread across his face. "I doubt it. A trip this far is abnormal for us, and considering how this case turned out to be a wild goose chase…our chances of traveling this far again aren't likely."

_A wild goose chase, right? Dad said that the murders following Detective Mouri around were just coincidences, or a result of his occupation._

But looking down at Conan, Sam wasn't so sure. _Maybe it wasn't Mr. Mouri who was cursed, but Conan?_

"I guess this is goodbye, then, Sam. Take care of yourselves." He offered a hand.

_Will he be all right, if he really is cursed?_

After a moment's hesitation, Sam shook Conan's hand. "We will. You too, all right? With all those murders that happen around you?"

"Don't worry about me. Murders don't really faze me."

"Right. Bye, Conan."

_He'll be fine. It's not the murders that bother him…it's what we deal with. The illogical, the supernatural. He can handle himself._

Sam turned back and waved at Conan before rushing to catch up to the rest of his family.

**A/N:** And so ends the story! I hope you all enjoyed how it turned out :) Thank you again, everyone who's read this story, and a big thanks to my reviewers, Fluehatraya and Alyss Penedo. I hope to write something again sometime in the future, but for now, thank you and good-bye. ^ ^


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